We have one thing to say about Tim Russert’s almost cliched ambush of a guest from whom he did have a right to seek on-the-record clarifications: “Oye.”
If a reporter gets a dramatic quote or piece of broadcast tape and runs it — and runs with it — so it becomes the rage of the day…and then it turns out to be flawed, filled with inaccuracies or even lies, that reporter has a right and DUTY to go back to that source to ask the questions again and ask the big question: “What happened? I thought you said X and X?”
At issue is Hurricane Katrina newsmaker Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard. Like everyone else on this planet who has a weblog and/or news communications outlet, this site quoted part of his story about a lady who pleaded for days for help from her bureaucrat son to be rescued until, Broussard tearfully told Russert on Meet The Press, she drowned. Read the link in the first paragraph above for the transcript and you can see what happened yesterday and make your own decision. (Note: we quoted his tale in passing and didn’t do a separate post on it but we did include it in our coverage).
What happened was some bloggers and journalists discovered Broussard’s timeline was horribly flawed. Some genuinely pursued this in the interest of accuracy. Some seemingly pursued it to argue that since the federal government wasn’t involved in this particular fiasco by implication the federal government didn’t do as terrible a job during Hurricane Katrina as the other levels of government did or not as badly as the press was reporting.
What did Russert do yesterday? He fell into two traps: (1)He made the esssence of his interview exposing Broussard, who seemed dismayed by the implication that because the timeline of his tale (which turns out to be incredibly second hand) was seriously wrong somehow the federal government didn’t do a poor job in New Orleans. (2)Russert’s questioning indeed made it sound as if he was trying to compensate for his earlier broadcast by suggesting that the federal government did get a bum rap.
But his biggest mistake is that by doing a bit of overkill, Russert may have confirmed the view of journalists as frankly not nice people who seem to be more interested in going after drama and confrontation and who present things in black and white terms versus people probing to find out the truth in a larger context. Russert may now also arouse partisan passions as well as he will likely be perceived, defined and pigeonholed by partisan activists on both sides (those who make excuses for the federal government and say the local and state officials were mostly to blame will love Russert; those who feel the federal government was mostly to blame and make excuses for local and state officials will detest him).
Jeff Jarvis sees it the same way as we do so we’ll let him say it since he says it far better than we can:
On this week’s Meet the Press, Russert replays Broussard’s emotional appearance for him and then goes after him on the facts. The woman who died was in a nursing home where the owners have been indicted for neglecting and not evacuating their residents. So, Russert says, that’s not the feds’ fault, huh? Russert gets up on a factual high-horse but Broussard puts him right back in his place, explaining that he learned what he said from his staff and that he certainly did not cross-examine his colleague about the mother he could not rescue, who had just died. That does not make the story of neglect of the entire city of New Orleans by government at all — all — levels any less vital. And Broussard says so.
Ahh….but, you see, if you point your finger at the local government…point your finger at the state government you are demanding responsibility. If you point your finger at the federal government you are accused of indulging in the “the blame game”…by people who point their fingers at the local and state governments. More from Jarvis:
Too much of journalism is turning this way today: If we nitpick the facts and follow some rules some committee wrote up, we’ll be safe; we’re doing our jobs. No, sir, our job is to get more than the facts. Anybody can get facts. Facts are the commodity. The truth is harder to find. Justice is harder to fight for. Lessons are what we’re after.
Tim Russert lost sight of the story because he was embarrassed that bloggers caught a guest on his show with facts that were wrong. Russert’s proper response should have been to fix those facts quickly and clear but still pursue the real story. Instead, he chose to shoot the messenger who embarrassed him with the bloggers. He lost sight of his real mission.
Indeed, Russert credits the new info to bloggers. So what did he do?
He COULD have gone after correction of the facts as Jarvis says — “quickly and clear.” But he seemed to want to not just fix the facts but discredit the source and lose sight of the big picture story.
In providing infotainment — by going after and decimating his onetime star guest, by showing pit-bull persistence on the inaccuracies of and producing a good, confrontational, “hot talk” TV segment — he succeeded.
In providing information — seeking and demanding to set the record straight, and putting it all within the larger context of the Katrina story that has seen hapless local and state authorities, the resignation of FEMA’s director, expressions of responsibility by the President for any federal failings, and criticism from people of BOTH parties over the federal job performance — he failed.
UPDATE: You can watch the video here via Crooks And Liars (John Amato gives you his own no-holds-barred take on this story).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.